Two Rivers
Tom Darin Liskey
The summer
I left for college
You said you wanted
To show me
A stretch of river
That my father — now long dead —
Loved as a young man.
That surprised me
Because you rarely
Spoke of him,
Either out of grief or bitterness —
I could never tell, you just never did.
But that afternoon
You guided me north
Down narrow backroads
Lined with gleaming silos
And late summer corn.
Then you told me to slow
At a railroad junction
And I could tell
By the way you squinted
At the horizon
You were trying to coax
Something from memory.